President Donald Trump‘s border czar, Tom Homan, defended United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities after a federal judge ordered the agency to improve them following detainee complaints.
“I’ll compare our detention standards to any county jail or state prison in the country,” Homan told the Washington Examiner. “I mean that. Anybody can go to ice.gov and look at the detention standards. As a matter of fact, a lot of people might be a little upset we’re spending this much money on detention standards.”
Homan contended that some county sheriffs have previously encountered difficulties in being able to afford ICE detention standards.
“They said, ‘If I can’t give these detention standards to a U.S. citizen, why am I going to pay all this money to give detention standards to someone who is not even supposed to be here?’” he said. “So I’ll compare an ICE facility, any ICE facility in this country, any state, any county, any prison in the nation. I’ll compare them side by side.”
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to improve an ICE detention facility in New York City after detained migrants complained it was dirty and overcrowded, in addition to being denied access to hygiene products and their lawyers.
Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit brought on behalf of the detainees by Make the Road New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the American Civil Liberties Union. The order required ICE to reduce the capacity and ensure the cleanliness of hold rooms at 26 Federal Plaza, a government building in Manhattan that houses an immigration court and the FBI‘s New York field office.
The lawsuit alleged, among other allegations, that one woman experiencing her period could not use menstrual products because women in her room were given just two between them.
“My conclusion here is that there is a very serious threat of continuing irreparable injury, given the conditions that I’ve been told about,” Kaplan said Tuesday during a hearing.
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He also ordered ICE to allocate 50 square feet per person so that each hold room’s capacity is 15, to clean the rooms three times a day, and to make accommodations for sleeping mats and confidential legal telephone calls.